Swedish Police Under Investigation for Sexual Assault Cover Up
Source: bloomberg.com
Swedish police have come under criticism for keeping quiet about alleged sexual assault incidents by young immigrant men over the past couple of years at a music festival in Stockholm.
The allegations came to light in a report over the weekend by newspaper Dagens Nyheter, citing internal police memos, and mirror similar incidents over the New Year’s holidays that have sparked investigations in Germany.
National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson vowed to investigate whether there had been a cover up.
“If what’s alleged is true, it’s serious from several vantage points,” he said in an interview with newspaper Expressen. “We could perhaps have prevented that girls had been molested if we had talked clearly about this. Secondly, it’s obviously not our role to take various political aspects into account.”
Sweden accepted a record number of immigrants last year, including about 35,000 unaccompanied minors from countries such as Afghanistan.
Stockholm police now say it was a mistake not to tell the public about the incidents at the festival, according to news agency TT. In any case, as is policy, the police wouldn’t have revealed the ethnicity or background of any alleged perpetrators, spokesman Varg Gyllander told TT.
Source: bloomberg.com
